A PLAN TO AVERT 'A PERFECT STORM' OF CRISES

by Robert J. Walker

John Beddington, England's chief scientific adviser, warned last year of an approaching "perfect storm."

He forecast that by 2030, population growth and climate change, along with a 50 percent increase in demand for food and energy and a 30 percent jump in demand for fresh water, could precipitate a global crisis.

"There's not going to be a complete collapse," Bennington said, "but things will start getting really worrying if we don't tackle these problems."Judging by 2009, it looks as if we aren't tackling them.

In July, a United Nations study warned that, despite a large unmet need for contraceptive services in the developing world, "conspicuous" funding gaps existed in international support for family planning. But in October, a U.N. gathering of parliamentarians in Ethiopia yielded almost no concrete commitments for donations for increased assistance for family planning.

Without more support, global population is likely to increase from 6.8 billion in 2009 to 8.3 billion over the next two years.

Several more recent reports have warned that greenhouse gas emissions are still rising and that climate change is accelerating.

But international negotiators meeting in Copenhagen in December were not able to reach any kind of binding agreement on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Chances that the United States Congress will pass a meaningful "cap and trade" bill this year to control emissions are not good. Here and abroad, it's still more or less business as usual. In September, the United Nations announced that the number of chronically hungry has been growing over the past decade and would pass the one billion mark in 2009. Another report has warned that "dramatic increases in water productivity" were needed to avert an expanded food crisis in Asia. But in November, donor nations met at the World Food Summit in Rome without committing to any new aid.

Meanwhile, despite the lingering Great Recession, commodity prices staged an impressive rebound in 2009. Oil prices rose 75 percent and copper and zinc prices more than doubled. As the year ended, food analysts were worried that poor harests because of bad weather would precipitate another sharp increase in the price of rice. Another food crisis could be right around the corner. Supply and demand are on a collision course.

As Beddington's "perfect storm" draws ever closer, there is little reason to believe that coordinated international efforts aimed at preventing it will materialize anytime soon. Policymakers everywhere need to take a closer look at the radar. If population growth remains on track, and efforts to mitigate climate change stay largely off track, Beddington's "perfect storm" could arrive even sooner than expected. The biggest near-term global threat is a lack of food security.

Over the next 40 years, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization says global food production will have to increase by 70 percent, and in the developing world by 100 percent to prevent a hunger crisis. That's a tall order. Look what the world's farmers will be up against: division of farmland to biomass production; rising temperatures and sea levels; increasing drought and flooding due to climate change; higher prices for fertilizer and transportation because of rising energy prices; the depletion of underground water aquifers in many parts of the world, and, quite possibly, dwindling international assistance.

Two years ago, grain prices more than doubled, world grain reserves grew dangerously low, and food riots spread around the world. Grain reserves have rebounded since then, but World Bank President Robert Zoellick warned several weeks ago that the food crisi could recur in 2010.

The nations most adversely affected would be those least able to cope with higher prices. The list includes trouble spots such as Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen, as well as potential trouble spots such as Egypt, Syria and the Philippines.

Looking 20 years down the road to 2030, it is not hard to envision an increasingly destabilized world in which climate change is more pronounced, with concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere dangerously close to the 450 parts per million level that scientists say could trigger the worst effects of climate change.

It is not difficult to imagine a world that is desperately short of energy and a global economy cripppled by high energy prices.

It is easy to construct a plausible scenario in which hundreds of millions of people are on the verge of starvation, conflicts are erupting in Africa, the Middle East and South Asia, and global leaders are unable to cope.

What is difficult is seeing how today's leaders will summon the vision and the will to deal with these threats before it is too late.

For reasons of both prevention and preparation, Congress and policymakers around the world need to do what military planners and emergency relief agencies already do: scenario planning.

Unless legislators develop a clearer understanding of the damage that could be inflicted by Beddington's "perfect storm," the odds of a global calamity grow ever higher.

Scenario planning can also give policymakers a keener sense of the inevitable policy conflict that will arise in an increasingly overcrowded and over-consuming world.

War games are not just for the generals because military conflict is by no means the only or even the chief security threat in today's world. It is time for policymakers to anticipate and build a detailed plan to combat the perfect storm that is approaching.

Robert J. Walker is the executive vice president of the Population Institute, a nonprofit organization striving to achieve a world population in balance with a healthy global environment and resource base. The preceding article is reprinted from the San Francisco Chronicle.

POLITICAL CONTRIBUTION TRANSPARENCY URGED

WASHINGTON, DC -- A campaign has been launched to convince companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 Index to dirsclose all political contributions they make with corporate funds.

The effort, led by the Center for Political Accountability and the Council of Institutional Investment and joined by nearly 50 institutional investor and shareholder advocate groups, was spurred by the U.S. Supreme Court's January 21 ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which CPA and CII argue "rewrote America's campaign finance laws."

Currently, 73 S&P 500 companies -- including nearly half of the S&P 100 dsiclose and monitor corporate political spending. These include Hewlett-Packard, Merck, United Technologies, e-Bay, Aetna and Microsoft.

On February 24, a letter was sent to the chairs of 427 companies that have yet to adopt disclosure and accountability policies for political spending.

In the letter, CPA and CII contend that by removing all but a handful of restraints on corporate America, the ruling "poses a major challenge to companies and their shareholders," warning: "It is likely to put companies under immense pressure to use shareholders' funds to support candidates, groups and causes whose positions and activities could threaten a company's reputation, bottom line and shareholder value."

"It's imperative that companies protect themselves from the pressure to give and form ill-considered spending," said Bruce Freed, president of CPA. "That's why adopting policies and procedures for political disclosure and accountability is so important for companies and their shareholders. The companies that have done so, including nearly half the S&P 100 have voluntarilty agreed to disclose and require board oversight of their political spending with corporate funds."

The Council of Institutional Investors, a leading advocate for good corporate governance, has long urged boards to disclose, monitor, assess and approve all charitable and political contributions made by their companies.

"Investors need to know how their money is being spent in the political arena," said Ann Yerger, the Council's executive director. "And boards need to step up to the plate and ensure that political checks the company writes enhance, not erode, shareholder value."

In addition to the CPA and CII, the following institutional investors and shareholder advocates are among those who have signed the letter: California Public Employees Retirement System, New York State Common Retirement Fund, New Jersey State Investment Counci, Connecticut State Treasurer, Trillium Asset Management, Domino Social Investment, Walden Asset Management, Green Century Capital Management, Nathan Cummings Foundation, Social Investment Forum, Sheet Metal Workers' National Pension Fund, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Amalgamated Bank.

The Center for Political Accountability (CPA) is a nonprofit association or public union and corporate pension fund with corporate assets of $3 trillion. Member funds are major long term shareowners with a duty to protect the retirement assets of millions of American workers. The Council of Institutional Investors strives to educate its members, policymakers and the public about good corporate governance, shareowner rights and related investment issues, and to advocate for members.

HOW TO AVOID A DANGEROUS PRECEDENT

by H. N. Burdett

Yale University law professor Bruce Ackerman was among the many Americans left in a state of shock when the Justice Department exonerated Jay S. Bybee and John C. Yoo, who while serving in the Office of Legal Counsel in George W. Bush's White House were responsible for the notorious memorandum authorizing torture to derive information from enemy combatants.

Ackerman, who wrote some of the more brilliant challenges of the allegedly stolen presidential election of 2000, observes that the OLC was once primarily staffed by career lawyers. But by the time George W. Bush entered the White House it was overrun by political appointees such as Bybee and Yoo, who are by definition there to serve their benefactor rather than the public.

The professor worries that the Justice Department decision to not cite the authors of the memorandum for any wrongdoing established "a dangerous precedent."

In a Washington Post oped piece, Ackerman expresses concern that the memorandum willl serve as the precedent for giving the green light to the president, as commander in chief, to ignore Congress's statutory prohibition on torture and "order the military or the CIA to engage in any and all forms of abuse."

According to the Justice Department, Bybee and Yoo "acted professionally" in defending unchecked presidential power considering that they had the support of other political appointees in the OLC and prior to the issuance of the memorandum the White House was demanding a quick decision.

Ackerman believes this virtually guarantees that future political appointees will make certain they line up like-minded colleagues before releasing extremist legal positions in their memorandums during the next crisis. He further feels, however, that under the constitutional admonition that the president "take care that the laws be faithfuly executed," both the Commander in Chief and Congress have an obligation to fix that which is only too apparently broken.

The starting point, Ackerman feels, should be for Congress to work with President Obama to establish an executive tribunal that would ensure fidelity to the rule of law.

Rather than acting as lawyers for the sitting president, tribunal members would function as judges for the executive branch, nine in all, who would serve staggered 12-year terms. Thus, the president would be able to nominate three judges during a four-year period. The president's nominees would require Senate confirmation, an incentive for the chief executive to select fair-minded candidates rather than legal ideologues.

House and Senate committees would be able to challenge presidential actions before the tribunal. Once the panel has heard both sides of an argument, it would lay down the law for the executive branch. Should a private party gain standing to challenge an action by the tribunal, the matter could be heard by the Supreme Court, which could overrule decisions by the panel.

Noting that "if history is any guide, the Supreme Court will intervene on national security matters only rarely," Ackerman said: "In the meantime, the executive tribunal will assure Americans that their freedoms are no longer at the tender mercies of the Yoos of the world."

The Yale professor's plan to restore integrity to the process -- so obviously wanting in the torture memorandum case -- has sufficient merit that Congress and the president should get the wheels rolling for it, or something similar, to be created post haste.

THE EROSION OF TRUST IN THE MEDIA

by H. N. Burdett

There has been a steep plunge in public confidence in the media from the time of Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite until today.

During World War II, from his reporting of Hitler's Anschluss to the bombing of London and overall progress of the war all the way through to the liberation of concentration camps, Murrow's reports offered a voice of reason and calm assurance that was as important to his listeners in the United States as Prime Minister Winston Churchill's words were to the people of Great Britain.

Murrow's honesty and integrity caught and held the attention of Americans after the war when he became the most important pioneer of television news: exposing Senator Joe McCarthy's twisting of truth and outright lies that led to the Wisconsin senator's censure, as well as spearheading the golden age of network documentaries, a hallmark of quality reporting unsurpassed in the annals of either television or print journalism.

Building on Murrow's lofty legacy, Walter Cronkite reported such milestone events of the two decades when he sat at the CBS anchor desk -- the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the landing of the first man on the moon, and his memorable conclusion that the Vietnam war could not be won. In 1972, an Oliver Quayle poll revealed that it was neither the President, nor any member of Congress or the Supreme Court, nor for that matter a brilliant research scientist, or a philosoper but rather Walter Cronkite who was "the most trusted man in America."

Today the peak of Olympus reached by both Murrow and Cronkite is enshrouded by clouds of doubt and distrust. News reporters are frequently enough viewed with the same suspicion, disdain and even derision once reserved for used car and aluminum siding salesmen and three-card Monte dealers.

Results of the 10th annual Edelman Trust Barometer shockingly reveals that public confidence in news coverage has nosedived from 48 percent to 31 percent; in newspapers, from 46 to 32; in television news, from 44 to 20 percent.

Edelman bills itself as the world's largest independent public relations company, with 3,400 employees working from 54 offices around the world. According to the firm, this trust and credibility survey consisted of 25-minute telephone interviews conducted among 4,875 individuals in two age categories, 25 to 34 years old and 35 to 65, in 22 countries. All of those interviewed, according to the company, met the following criteria: college educated, household income within the top quarter in their country; read or watched business and/or news media at least several times a week; follow public policy news at least several times a week.

Upon closer examination, however, the Edelman survey could very well reflect factors over which the media has little or no control, such as the disastrous global economy and Wall Street behavior from incompetence to outright greed and fraud, as well as the eighth year of the so-called 'war on terrorism" which finds U.S. troops mired in South Asia, with neither a plausible definition of what might constitute victory nor even a reasonable facsimile of an exit strategy.

In other words, the survey may demonstrate a textbook example of scapegoating that goes all the way back to a line in Sophocles' Antigone: "No one loves the messenger who brings bad news." Which contemporary phrasemakers have converted to the more direct: "Kill the messenger!"

There are those who believe that when the United States, the quintessential good guys, is revealed to have used barbaric methods from waterboarding to sexual humiliation to squeeze information from enemy combatants, or when the economy tanks and the

princes of the universe, the movers and shakers of the financial industry, walk away from the debris they caused, laughing all the way to the bank, there is, or should be, a public perception that none of this could have happened had the media been doing its job.

Thomas Jefferson's warning that the price of liberty is eternal vigilance is a responsibility the public, with ample justification, places squarely on the shoulders of the Fourth Estate -- the representatives of the people in a free society. Jefferson also said

that "were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter."

In a free society, a free press is not a luxury, it is a necessity. When the media drops its guard and lets the public down, it is a sin those of a certain age could absolutely not in their wildest dreams imagine Murrow or Cronkite committing.

'BYE-BYE , BAYH: THE LAST BIPARTISAN

by H. N. Burdett

It's not exactly panic time for the Democratic contingent in the United States Senate. But that seems to be the attitude among party insiders, and it so happens to be smart thinking

Too often these days, the old verities are cast aside and sometimes that's just plain dumb. The verity that once applied to political officeholders and needs to be chiseled in stone is: Always run scared.

The permanence of incumbency is at the very root of much that is wrong with contemporary politics. And at the very root of incumbency permanence is the same as the root of all evil: the long green, dolares, big bucks, filty lucre.

If you woke up this morning from a Van Winklian snooze, you should know that the driving force behind most officeholders, the game-changer between success and failure is the same as when you tucked yourself in and gently rested your head on your favorite pillow to sleep off whatever hangover might have prolonged your slumber: the mother's milk of politics, sadly enough, is still money. Obscene amounts of it.

As the ancient saying goes, "Those who raiseth filthy lucre in sufficent supply will findeth themselves snugly ensconced in city halls, governor's mansions, state legislatures, the United States Congress and the White House." Okay, so that's not such an ancient statement, I came up with it five minutes ago, but it has a nice ring.

Special attention should be given to the emphasis on the adverb snugly, which is informed by the stupendous advantage those in office maintain and retain when they are savvy enough to keep their money machines grinding away in operative mode around the clock and fulltime, rather than consigning them to the fate of collecting dust and rust in the basement alongside all of those bumper stickers, buttons, car-tops and other campaign goodies.

More than a few clever students of the body politic feel that term limitations are the one and only answer to the problem of incumbency permanence. Indeed any number of governors, mayors and county executives are subjected to this restriction, all the way up the President of the United States in this land of the spree and home of the knave.

But it is the proverbial two-edge rapier. I can still think of a few in public office I'd feel comfortable with representing me forever and others that have me reaching for my pen and searching for a recall petition before they have raised their right hand and placed their left on an ecumenical book of the word.

It is a quandary all right, one that got ample ink only a few days ago when Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana had his "no mas" moment. The same Evan Bayh whose thoughtful centrism appeals to that all but extinct species still considering themselves to be middle-of-the-road voters. The same Evan Bayh who was short-listed for the Vice President slot on Barack Obama's ticket before Joe Biden, an outspoken liberal, was anointed.

Of equal interest, it is the same Evan Bayh who had collected the necessary petitions to have his name placed on the Indiana ballot for a third term quest in the Senate; had compiled opposition research information on Daniel R. Coats, the erstwhile U.S. Senator who once again figures to be the GOP nominee; and the same Evan Bayh who had hired core campaign workers and reportedly had more than $13 million drawing interest in his campaign bank account.

Bayh had so much going for him that it's only logical to ask just what was it that had the Indiana senator squirming in his seat? Apparently he had been concerned about the current entrenched partisanship culture of the United States Senate for a long while before reaching the decision he so clearly and concisely articulated in the statement he released to the press a few days back:

"There is too much partisanshp and not enough progress -- too much narrow ideology and not enough practical problem-saving. Even at this time of enormous challenge, the people's business is not being done."

In that gripping 33-word indictment, the Indiana senator both nailed what other members of Congress moan and groan about every day in the hallways of Capitol Hill and perhaps chiseled the epitaph for any slim hope that partisanship will self-destruct in Washington any time soon. Indeed Evan Bayh may go down in history as a curious relic to be assiduously examined by political science graduate students well into the future: the last American bipartisan.

Bayh's departure does not mean that his Senate seat will be all but gift-wrapped for Dan Coats. There's the matter of the campaign infrastructure Bayh had begun to assemble and the opposition research, to say nothing of those 13 million big ones.

Though Indiana has long been seen as a Republican-leaning state, it is also one with a deep strain of midwestern practicality. The Hoosier state not only elected Evan Bayh to a second term, it also gave its 11 electoral votes in the last presidential race to Barack Obama.

Giddy though the GOP rank-and-file party faithful may be regarding the prospects for a reversal of fortunes based on the turn of events in both Massachusetts and Indiana, the pros in the backroom at the Republican National Committee aren't quite ready to break out the Dom Perignon. The cold reality is embedded in the numbers. And the numbers remain daunting: Democrats still hold a commanding 59-41 lead in U.S. Senate seats.

No matter how the numbers play out through a combination of retirements and shifts of seats controled by the two major parties, clearly there will be an overhaul in the makeup of the United States Senate. Would that the same could be said of the culture of partisanship in that same august body.

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the Indiana Senator squirming in his seat in recent months as though he
couldn't wait to depart the Capitol and get to his kid's ball game?

Disturbed about the locked in place polarization of Congress, Bayh had long been
contemplating leaving the current culture of the U.S. Senate, which he so clearly and concisely articulated in a statement to the press:

"There is too much partisanship and not enough progress
-- too much narrow ideology and not enough practical problem-solving. Even at a time of enormous challenge, the people's business is not being
done. "

In that gripping, 33-word

indictment the Indiana senator both nailed down what other members of Congress moan and groan about every day in the hallways and lounges of Capitol Hill, and pronounced the epitaph for any hope that either centrism or bipartisanship will soon emerge as a meaningful force in American politics. Indeed, Evan Bayh may have been the last hope, the last bipartisan.

But Bayh's departure does not necessarily mean that Coats will have a clear path to Indiana's open seat in the upper chamber. Though the state is by tradition Republican-leaning, it is also known for deeply ingrained midwestern practicality: not only did its voters elect centrist Democrat Bayh to a second term, it gave its 11 electoral votes in 2008 to Democratic Presidential nominee Barack Obama.

Coming on the heels of Republican Scott Brown's victory in the Massachusetts special election for liberal lion Senator Edward Kennedy's seat, Bayh's retirement announcement was not a happy day for Democratic party campers. But it is still not panic time for Democrats, who continue to hold a commanding 59-41 margin in the U.S. Senate.

It is true that Democrats may have uphill battles ahead to keep Senate seats in Colorado, Delaware, Illinois, North Dakota, Arkansas, Nevada and now Indiana. But retirements have raised questions regarding the ability of Republicans to retain seats in Kentucky, Missouri, New Hampshire and Ohio.

Even so, it is clear that the Senate lineup can be expected to undergo a long overdue relative overhaul. Would that the same could be said for the culture of polarization pervading that august body.